States and major cities across the country have imposed the most extensive restrictions on business and social gatherings since widespread lockdowns during the spring, in hopes of preventing a further surge in COVID-19 cases over the winter holidays, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Nearly 85 million Americans are expected to travel from Dec. 23 through Jan. 3, off at least 29% from last year, according to an estimate by AAA. In states across the country, small businesses and restaurants are being hit with de facto lockdowns because of occupancy limits or restrictions on dining. At the same time, big-box retailers have been permitted to stay open, in part because their large stores allow for social distancing, prompting resentment from small-business owners. In the spring, all but a handful of states issued stay-at-home orders that ground nonessential economic activity to a halt. At the time, states were short of ventilators, testing capacity and personal protective equipment for health-care workers, and lacked treatments for the new virus. Those broad orders slowed the rate of infection and bought time for hospitals to catch up. Now, as case numbers surge, most states are clamping down on activities that help the virus spread while trying to avoid a complete shutdown of the economy. Even as Pfizer Inc. and Moderna Inc. deliver the first doses of the coronavirus vaccine, officials are pleading with a weary — and sometimes defiant — public to avoid the kinds of gatherings and travel that helped drive new cases to record levels nationally after Thanksgiving.
